"In May of 2022 I visited Nawshila School in the island of Nawshila Char in northern Bangladesh. The school had been built by the community and www.friendship.ngo. The islands in Northern Bangladesh are continuously hit by floods and are so remote and isolated that it was almost impossible to send the children to mainstream schools so www.friendship.ngo had embarked on an ambitious plan to build schools on these islands. These schools were built in such a way that they could be dismantled if a flood destroyed the village and then re-assembled on another island. 

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I met Fatima at the primary school and she described to me her happiness and joy that she was now able to attend school and she was now excited by her future as she wanted to travel and eventually become an English teacher.

I wanted to paint Fatima in a realism style with her looking confident yet still slightly vulnerable."

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Words by the artist, James Earley.